Category Archives: Technology

Some things will never be understood. Who built the pyramids? Where do birds come from? Well, fear no more: one of history’s great mysteries is about to be solved. The Val Ice Cream Machine is about to be fixed, once and for all.

The cream of the crop is here to cream this crop and stop that cream from cropping up where we don’t want it. That’s right, the cream team has arrived. Bullshit you say? More like bull’s milk, of the same ilk, as cow’s milk (iced cream). It’s the crème de la crème, here to restart the clock on Big Ben, and by that I mean fix this damn machine.

Soon it’ll be all peaches and cream, or rather, pernil al horno and cream. Get in the queue because it’s time to suckle one by one at the teet of Mother Milk. And oh baby am I gonna milk it for all it’s worth.

I’m out of order? No, you’re out of order, ice cream machine. In fact, I do have an order and it’s “one ice cream please.” Can you make that happen? Didn’t think so.

Still not fixed? How is that possible? Isn’t this a brand new machine? The tease of Madagascar Vanilla is enough to make me cream my jeans, and believe me I would if I could if this machine were in order. But I can’t, so I shan’t. And that’s the Amherst way.

AMHERST, MA — Ryan Strobl ’15, after years of research, is finally ready to present his thesis in Psychology, “Love the One You’re With: An Examination of Amherst Dating Culture,” in which he analyzes the aesthetic and cultural value of the Facebook page of Stacy Fowler, his longtime crush.

It was difficult to get hold of Strobl, since he spends much of his time investigating his topic. One can often find Strobl in deep concentration about Fowler’s Timeline in Frost’s C-Level, in his dorm room in King, or in bathrooms around campus.

“I’ve always been interested in the topic and have been doing personal research since Freshman year,” remarked Strobl while scrolling through the ‘iOS Photos’ album. “Only now am I able to dedicate the time and effort I need to hone in on the important moments of her life, all the way from her Hawaii 2013 album to her high school senior portrait, and everything in between.”

His thesis advisor, Professor Catherine A. Sanderson, believes strongly in the value that this thesis will contribute to existing scholarship:

“Its exploration of Fowler’s Facebook profile really opens up new avenues for other scholars to build upon. For example, I wasn’t aware that in 2012, Stacy posted about how she thought older men were cute. These are the questions that have been plaguing my mind for years, and now we’re finally getting answers.”

It is important that there would be some collaboration with Stacy, Strobl told the Muck-Rake, but according to him, she has not responded to the hundreds of messages, which he has sent for research purposes.

“I’ve tried everything,” he said while caressing a tattoo of Fowler he has on his bicep. “But I recognize that she’s only trying to help me out. After all, ignoring my calls and unfriending me on social media just makes my analysis more objective.”

After graduation, Strobl ’15 hopes to eventually earn a PhD in Stacy Fowler.

“I’ve read a lot of Facebook pages about AAS candidates’ platforms,” explained O’Leary, “but nothing has touched the depths of my soul like Blaine’s comments about how much he wants to make the AAS work for me.”

“The next thing I did was call my mother,” said O’Leary, dry-eyed from an evening of epiphantic sobbing. “I’m going to memorize the whole page. I just feel like I need to make it mine.”

At press time, O’Leary’s Facebook status, “Vote for Blaine Patrick Werner for AAS Senate!!!!”, had garnered four likes.

This Friday (January 24), there will be a brief maintenance outage of the main Muck-Rake website (www.amherstmuckrake.com, also known as the CMS), beginning at 3:00 PM, lasting approximately 15 minutes. During this period, visitors to www.amherstmuckrake.com will receive a “System temporarily down for maintenance” notice, and no regular nor irregular content will be available (including News in Photos, the search bar, Athletics content, as well as many others.) The website should be back up by 3:30 PM.

Other services (such as E-mail, Muck-Rake Uzbekistan, and SQL servers) should remain up and running normally during this outage.

— Amherst Muck-Rake IT Services

UPDATE: The outage has been rescheduled to next Monday from 12:00 PM until 4:30 PM.

UPDATE: The downtime has been rescheduled for the following Wednesday from 1:15 AM until 8:37 AM. The outage is henceforth to be referred to as a “downtime.”

UPDATE: The downtime is henceforth to be referred to as an “uptime.” The uptime will last all month. We apologize for any inconvenience.